I'm Here
by BroughtBack
Summary: It's been a year, but the nightmares haven't disappeared. When Ben can no longer be strong, he finds solace in a thirteen year old Mark. Warnings: Slash, Underage. REVIEW PLEASE.


Those long, thin legs were encased by a pair of denim shorts that were rolled up to the mid thigh, a tank top adorning the boy's torso as he stood in front of the stove, cooking eggs and bacon in a fry pan and filling the hot adobe home with the scent of salt and meat. Blue eyes traced over the thin frame, lithe and youthful and with a healthy glow from the light tan that it had developed. Walking over like a man in a trance, he placed his hands on that thin waist, feeling the radiating heat of sweat and the boy's body temperature and becoming reassured by that.

But it wasn't enough, because when those dark eyes turned to look up at him, so concerned and round, the memory of the nightmare burned in his mind and he imagined them as pale, glowing gold and the boy's soft lips pulled thin to reveal sharp fangs.

"Ben?" Mark whispered, placing his palm against the older man's cheek. "You're soaking wet."

The concern, the warmth, they were real, they were what made Mark human and as Ben leaned in to kiss the boy firmly on his lips he wanted nothing more than to forget the dream, to erase the fake Mark with deathly pale skin and the seductive lips painted red with blood and replace him with this real Mark with tanned skin and wide eyes and lips that still trembled with uncertain pleasure whenever the older man kissed him.

"Ben, Ben…" The boy pulled back from the kiss with difficulty, framing the pale cheeks of his lover with his hands. "What's wrong? Was it another nightmare?"

The question was unnecessary and the boy knew it. He was haunted by similar dreams, after all.

The stove was quickly flicked off and Mark turned his full attention to Ben, who was now desperately trying to kiss full lips once more, trying to rid his mind of the images that he knew to be false and impossible, but feared all the same. It was strange, how that was. How he could tell himself that his dreams weren't real, but still feel the need – the compulsion – to fear them anyway.

"Ben, you're scaring me. Talk to me." Ben refused to do so, shoving the boy against the counter and melding their mouths together firmly, stalling those words as thin hands clawed at his dark hair, tugging at dark strands and shoving at broad shoulders. The older man removed his mouth from Mark's lips before pressing them to the pulse thrumming, fluttering like a hummingbird under warm skin, at the boy's neck. Mark finally managed to wrench himself away from the bruising grasp, sending their bodies spiraling away from one another as he gasped. "Ben!"

Before the older man could comprehend what had happened, still sleep hazed as he was, there was a sharpened point pressed to his chest, Mark standing in front of him with trembling lips and eyes in seizures of fear.

"Please… Say something." He whispered gently, looking up at the older man desperately. "Say something."

"I dreamed that Barlowe got to you." Ben whispered, after a moment of silence and a firmer press of the stake to his chest. "I dreamed that he came here and snuck into the house. He broke the locks on our door and crept inside while we were sleeping." Mark's hand didn't shake or waver as he waited for the other man to finish. Those brown eyes, dark and sweet as liquid chocolate, refusing to look into Ben's blue eyes, a precaution rightfully taken seeing as the author would have done the same. "He pulled you from my side while I slept and I didn't hear you. I dreamt I woke up and you weren't there. I went into the kitchen and there you were standing, making breakfast, and I was so relieved. Then you turned around and it wasn't you."

Mark dropped the stake, the wood clattering to the ground loudly, before throwing his arms around the older man and pressing their faces together, gently rubbing the older man's cheek. "It's me, Ben. It's Mark." Ben nodded and pulled a kiss from the boy's mouth, met with no resistance this time.

Thirteen.

Too young. Too fucking young to be kissing with such finesse, to push and maneuver Ben until he was sitting in one of the armless chairs perched next to the kitchen table. Too young to be pulling his shirt over his head and pulling the older man until his ear was pressed to a frail breast to listen to the pounding heart beneath the flesh. He was the devil's number, all seven deadly sins wrapped into a neat little package of flesh and bone that Ben had been helpless to resist after those first few nights where they did little more than drive and cling to one another in the pauses between.

"Look at me, Ben." Mark whispered and the older man lifted his head, looking into those strong, firm eyes that told him to look well. "I'm here."

Hair that curled around his jaw in a gentle bob, dark and sun-gleaming, dark eyes that were hypnotic, but not in the way that the vampires had been, full lips that were warm and rich and tasted always of something sweet and young and forbidden, skin that was sun-kissed and in his mind would always be smooth and tender.

"I'm here." The boy repeated and Ben wondered when his psyche had become so fragile that it had become so dependent on this child, this wonderfully strong, stubborn child that could reassure him with his mere presence.

Ben watched, bewitched by the slow motions, as Mark unzipped his pants, his face flushing beneath his tan as he slid the tight denim off of hips and down his thighs, stepping out of them and his underwear so that he was bared before the older man. Scarred knees gently met the tile floor and Ben placed a hand on dark curls as the boy unzipped his pants and tugged them down his hips, grasping the revealed length of flesh and giving a firm stroke to the tender organ, pulling a moan from Ben's lips.

Much too young to be so experienced in how to pull the older man to the wavering edge, his lips pressed to a swollen tip as his long, elegant fingers stroked up and down hard, hot flesh. Dark eyes watched Ben as the man moaned and stroked soft hair, Mark gently laying kisses on the flesh before standing and moving to straddle the man. Ben didn't pretend to be packing anything too impressive, but whenever Mark slid down onto him, gasping and shuddering and waiting tensely for the pain to lessen, he had to wonder at how small and delicate the boy was and how he managed to repeat the actions time and time again.

Long fingers grasped at the older man's bare shoulders, blue eyes staring at that pleasured face as the boy began to rock and grind against the erection buried in his body. Slightly long nails curled into Ben's skin and the boy gasped as what he had been shifting and searching for was discovered, the bolt of white pleasure racing up his spine making him tremble even more but for a different reason.

Ben's hands suddenly went into motion, stroking and grasping and groping and simply touching the boy as Mark began the fervent pace, riding the older man until he was sure that he would be torn in two, like the victims of Vlad the Impaler that he had read about when they had gotten to their new home. Oh, but he would have happily been torn apart for the man before him, the man that had kept him safe, saved him from a town that they couldn't save.

Ben gasped and moaned as he came, filling the boy above him until some of the thick white fluid leaked onto his own thighs. Mark whimpered and moaned, clenching slowly as he reached between their bodies to touch himself, his hand being batted away by a larger, rougher palm, the older man beginning to slowly stroke and tease the boy's shaft and head until he cried out and everything tightened. Ben slowly removed the boy from his lap, Mark gasping and letting out a low sigh as he stood on wobbly legs, Ben moving to hold him close as they stood, naked and covered in their own fluids in the kitchen.

White semen slid down from between Mark's thighs and the boy shivered at the sensation before he leaned forward to kiss Ben's lips, stroking the man's cheek gently.

"Ben," The older man met that dark gaze and the nightmare was gone, forgotten for now, as he realized that all was right in his relative world and that Mark was still Mark. "I'm here."

Still thirteen. Still youthful and fresh and gentle. Still all temptations incarnate. Still strong and firm. Still the boy that crumbled every so often in the same way that Ben would.

Still alive.

"I'm here."


End file.
